Garnish’s horse was too surly to take another body on its back, so Columbine led him to Balin on foot while he rode. Although she could run for a long time, she was very out of breath by the time they got back to the clear pool. To say that Garnish was not a graceful rider was an understatement; his dismount involved a four-stage tumble from his saddle. She grabbed his arm to stop him going flat on his face.

‘This is the patient then?’ said the lad from north of Vellion, when his feet were firmly on the ground.

Columbine fought to get her breath back. ‘Aye.’

Garnish removed his dented helmet and let it drop to the squelching ground. He tried to kneel, but the lower part of his bent breastplate dug into his chunky thighs. ‘Here, help me off with this, will you?’ he said, trying to reach the ties at his shoulders that held his armour in place. Columbine’s nimble fingers soon removed the thin metal. Garnish’s sweat glistened through his thick leather undershirt, giving a shine to the links of his much-holed chainmail vest. Freed from the plate metal, Garnish took off his gloves and knelt by Balin.

‘Gods be good,’ he said, as he looked at Balin’s bearded face, ‘I know this bloke. He doesn’t look very well.’ Int he time she’d been away Balin’s face had gone from the deathly grey to a marbled white. The fine veins in his face ran black.

Garnish pulled the pigeon cloak from the injured boy and recoiled from the festering leg. ‘He’s got the gangrene. It’s spread into the blood.’

‘Can you do anything?’

Garnish sat back on his heels. His big arse almost swallowed his feet. ‘What’s that sword all about?’ He nodded at the Dolorous Stroke.

‘Can you save him?’ said Columbine impatiently.

‘I could try taking the leg, but that would probably kill him more quickly rather than do any good.’ The portly lad met her eye. ‘I can make a potion to lessen his pain, but that’s probably all. There’s a woman – no, not her.’

‘What woman?’ she snapped.

‘No, no. She’s... too dangerous.’

Columbine felt Balin’s forehead. It was now something between hot and cold. His eyes were still working beneath his eyelids in a feverish dream, but his pulse raced in his neck and his breathing was very shallow. The girl from Vellion sat cross-legged beside the boy from the isles. If only she had been brave enough to take the leg when they were still by the riverside. This was her fault.

‘Do it, Garnish. Make him more comfortable.’

‘My herbs are all back in my hut. Let’s strap him to War-Strider’s back.’ 

Columbine looked at the horse’s miserable expression, and the way it eyed its master with contempt. Only Garnish could look at that beast and decide it was either ready for war, or that striding was its defining feature.

* * *

For all it was little more than a wooden hut, Garnish had made a comfortable home for himself at the very top of the mount. As they stepped inside the cosy little house she was reminded strongly of the cottage the dented boy had kept with his forester father and medicine woman mother in the woods north of Vellion. She and Lily had often visited the place on their tours her uncle’s lands, always enjoying the herbal smells that wafted out of its windows. The same scent permeated the planks of Garnish’s new house. Tartan cushions and hangings gave the place the same colourful softness.

They carried Balin to the bed, and Columbine tucked several heavy blankets over him as Garnish lit a fire to boil water. She held Balin’s hand, watching the shallow rise and fall of chest. Every breath pained him, even in his sleep.

Garnish passed her a steaming bowl of herbal soup that smelled of sleep and release, and almost as soon as the food touched his lips, Balin gave out a great groan. Columbine saw his body relax from the terrible stiff tension of pain, and feared that he had died at that moment.

‘He lives,’ said Garnish softly. ‘Look, his chest rises and falls. The soup has just taken the edge off his hurts. I’m sorry for his state. He was the first knight I ever challenged at the pass, and he was very kind when he beat me; kinder than most of the others.’

‘Good,’ said Columbine. ‘Thank you, Garnish. I’m going outside.’ She placed the Dolorous Stroke in Balin’s hand, hoping that the reminder of their quest would help to bring him back into the world.

The sun was setting over the hills. Garnish’s hut was on a thin strip of flat land, which dropped into steep slate-covered slopes on three sides. The view was astonishing. The whole of the land they had passed through was visible to her: the mudflats, the river, the black expanse of the burnt forest, and beyond that the glimmering sea. She forced herself to look at the black turd of Camelot on the southern horizon.

She wished that she had planned their escape from the dungeons better. Her problem had always been that she had lived in the moment; that was why she had encouraged Lily to meet with Balan. Lily had always been one for following rules, for looking years into the future rather than moments. Her cousin would never have disobeyed her father if it hadn’t been for Columbine. She would have stayed in the castle and waited patiently, if miserably, for her wedding day. Columbine had only wanted Lily to be happy, but the happiness she had found in Balan’s arms had killed her.

Columbine sat on the edge of the drop and let her face fall into her hands. She would not cry. She would not cry until Lily was avenged.

She heard Garnish clump out of his cottage and come towards her. He draped a warm woollen blanket over her bare shoulders and took two goes at sitting beside her. The first time he slipped clumsily on the loose shingle and ended up two feet below the lip of the drop.

‘He’s sleeping well,’ he said, once he’d scrambled back up to her side.

‘Good,’ she said without looking up.

‘I wanted to ask you, is this a trick scabbard?’

Her blood ran cold as she saw that Garnish had the Dolorous Stroke in his hands. She clenched her fist, desperately wanting to punch the pathetic little boy in his oversized face.

‘That was not yours to take from Balin’s hand.’

Garnish gulped heavily, scared by the rage in her tone. ‘I know… I mean… I just wanted a look… It seemed like such a fine blade when you drew it… I just wanted to see.’

Instead of hitting him, she whipped the sword from his hand and jumped to her feet. She stormed back towards the cottage.

‘I just want to be a knight!’ shouted Garnish at her back.

Columbine stopped. She drew the sword. ‘Then I’ll show you what it is to be a knight.’ She enjoyed the look of terror in the fat boy’s eyes. He held up his hands to protect his face. It would do him no good against the Dolorous Stroke.

‘Please, Columbine, no! I just want to know what it’s like to hold a sword like that. I just want to be a knight. I need to win Lily’s love. I love her so much. I need to be a knight.’

Tears drenched his face. The boy had always been crying in his own home because he wanted things he couldn’t have. He had made himself ridiculous with ambitions that were well beyond his abilities to fulfil. She remembered all the times he had embarrassed himself, and Lily, by proposing marriage. Now was her chance to revenge Lily for that embarrassment.

Columbine hardened her eyes and strode towards the blubbering child, raising the sword above her head.

He fell to his knees, curling himself into a very round ball. ‘No no no no, please no,’ he sobbed.

Garnish was pathetic. She wouldn’t lower herself by striking so weak a creature. She sheathed the sword.

‘Lily’s dead, you fool.’ She spat, and turned away from him so that she was looking into the setting sun. She went to the other side of the pass, and sat down with her back to him. Garnish snivelled into the ground.

‘Dead? She’s dead?’ He gave a huge, rollicking sniff, dragging back into his nose all the stuff that had streamed out.

‘Yes. Now dry your eyes.’

He climbed back to his feet. ‘But she’s why I’m here. I thought… if I became a knight she might love me. So I went to Camelot, but they laughed at me. And then I remembered the stories about men who hold passes and bridges, and don’t let anyone go by without a joust. Those men sometimes get knighted if they lose to people like the king and Sir Lancelot, but, like, only just lose; like, without losing an arm or a leg or getting run right through. So I found the pass, and thought this is a good place for that kind of man who wants to be knight.’

‘But you weren’t very good at it,’ said Columbine.

‘Well, no,’ sniffed Garnish. ‘But I’m learning. Though what’s the point now that Lily’s dead?’

‘What’s that place?’ said Columbine, trying to stem the flow of his self-pity in case her temper broke its banks again. The sun had fallen behind the hills, and she could now make out a building at the bottom of the rise. It was made of a brilliant red stone that shone almost with the brightness of the sun, standing vividly out from the grey slate that surrounded it.

He crunched towards her and peered over the edge. He surely knew exactly what it was; it was the only building around for miles. Whoever lived in the red building was Garnish’s nearest neighbour.

‘It’s a bad place,’ he said with a quiver in his voice. ‘You don’t want to go there. I told you – she’s too dangerous.’ There was a strange look in his eyes; it might have been fear, but she wasn’t sure.

‘She?’

‘She practises blood magics down there. Believe me, you don’t want to get involved with her.’

‘Who is she?’

‘They used to call her the Lady of the Red Rock. That chapel is all that she could save of her castle. They call her the Lady of the Slates since she lost her lands and came here. But –’

But it was too late for Garnish to stop her. Columbine had heard of the power of blood magics. She was already sliding her way down the bank, the Dolorous Stroke in hand.